That's the guy who hopes he throws the right pitch. Then he hopes he throws it for a strike. Then he hopes the batter misses.

"Guy like that," Garagiola said, "is going to hope his (behind) right back to the minor leagues."

Last year, Garagiola found out that he had a tumor growing behind his left eye. He needed more than a "hope pitcher."

The first doctor said he didn't know what to make of it. The second doctor said he couldn't do anything about it.

Garagiola had no interest in hoping somebody could help him. He wanted the other kind of pitcher, the one who knows he is throwing the right pitch.

Dr. Joseph Zabramski, a neurosurgeon at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, took one look at the images of Garagiola's head and said the words the old catcher needed to hear.

"He looks at me says and says: 'I can do that.' " Garagiola said. "It wasn't music to my ears. It was a symphony."

World Series champ

Garagiola won a World Series with his hometown team, the St. Louis Cardinals, when he was just 20 years old.

That was the highlight of a career that lasted nine seasons. Garagiola played with Hall of Famers but never got close to becoming one as a player.

He really made his name for himself as a broadcaster. He worked with legendary sportscaster Vin Scully, then called the World Series for a number of years. He was also a host of the "Today Show" in the 1960s and '70s. He finally did make the broadcast wing of the Hall of Fame, winning the 1991 Ford C. Frick Award.

Garagiola, 84, whose son is a former Diamondbacks general manager, is still doing some games for the Diamondbacks on television. Watching baseball and talking about the game are still among his great joys.

That's what made the tumor so frightening. It was taking away his vision. Left unchecked, it would threaten his ability to speak.

"Scared? Oh boy, I don't mind telling you I was scared," Garagiola said. "I cannot imagine life not being able to see."

Garagiola first noticed his vision was going in his left eye. Cataract surgery was supposed to clear things up. But it didn't. That's when his doctor ordered magnetic resonance imaging.

Those pictures showed a meningioma, a benign tumor. It was about the size of a golf ball. The immediate problem was that it was growing right around Garagiola's optic nerves. It was also getting dangerously close to his carotid artery.

When Garagiola ended up in Zabramski's office, he was as nervous as a cat. But the doctor made it clear from the very beginning that he could handle it. That, he said, is part of his job.

"We have to instill enough confidence in a patient that he can begin to relax. They have to believe in what you are doing," Zabramski said. "Otherwise they would never let you do it. Think about it. I'm telling him that I will need to make an incision on the side of his head and take a look around his brain for a few hours. It sounds nuts."

Garagiola didn't think it was nuts. He could see this doctor was no hope pitcher.